“It’s all luck really,” says one character in On Swift Horses, a 1950s set queer drama starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi. Though this character meets Edgar-Jones’ Muriel through gambling on horse races, the luck she’s referring to encompasses so much more. The lives they’re leading, meeting clandestinely in a queer bar in downtown San Diego, two husbands at home waiting for them; how they’ve been able to explore their desires in a way that other characters in the film cannot.
At the Q&A after the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, On Swift Horses director Daniel Minahan said the film is “a re-imagining of the American Dream through a queer lens,” and the accompanying story, based on the novel of the same name by Shannon Pufahl, is fittingly elegiac. Though the script fails to follow through on some of its promises, the subtext is there and Elordi, Edgar-Jones, and the rest of the cast give quietly devastating performances as their dreams manifest in ways they cannot predict.
On Swift Horses Transcends Script Problems & Becomes Something Deeply Moving
The Cast Is Excellent Across The Board
Those dreams begin with a journey west, a sort of manifest destiny for Lee (Will Poulter) and Julius (Elordi). The brothers have promised each other they would move to San Diego once their tours in Korea are over and Muriel (Edgar-Jones), Lee’s soon-to-be fiancé, gets pulled along for the ride. Those dreams are dashed, though, when Julius arrives at Muriel’s Kansas farm, discharged from the army without pay.
Despite this, Muriel is instantly attracted to Julius, though it’s unclear if it’s platonic or something deeper. They continue exchanging letters once they part ways, Julius off to Vegas and Muriel to San Diego with Lee. Poulter’s character wants a traditional life with Muriel – a house they can call their own, kids with the woman he loves.
It comes with great pain and even greater love, all of which is portrayed beautifully by the film’s all-star cast.
But Muriel’s dreams aren’t yet fully formed; it isn’t until she meets neighbor Sandra (Calle) and begins gambling on horses that she figures out what she truly desires, which clashes with Lee’s vision for their lives. Conversely, Julius acts like he knows what he wants, cheating at cards and hustling on the side to make ends meet – living every day like there’s no tomorrow, as his brother says. But Julius realizes what he really wants when Calva’s Henry enters the picture. He falls in love and curtails his riskier instincts for something much simpler.
Once Julius and Muriel begin going after what they really want, they essentially swap perspectives. Julius wants safety – he’s reticent to cheat the casino he and Henry work at for risk of ruining the good thing they have. Muriel wants that risk in her life – she begins betting on horses, hiding the earnings from Lee and sneaking off to rendezvous with Sandra and another woman she’s met at the tracks.
Julius and Muriel are drawn to each other out of both attraction and a deeper understanding of who the other is. Both explore their desires, chasing their own version of the American Dream through the channels they can and often at the expense of or despite Sandra and Henry’s own dreams, who can’t move through the world in the same way as Julius and Muriel.
Still, they all find their way. On Swift Horses uses significant points in American history to track not only the character’s journeys, but the journey of America. In one scene, Henry takes Julius to watch a nuclear bomb test in the desert where people dance in the sand after. The old world is burning, and they’re blazing a path forward.
It’s not an easy path to walk. It comes with great pain and even greater love, all of which is portrayed beautifully by the film’s all-star cast. It’s really Edgar-Jones’ movie, her best role since Normal People, though both Calva and Calle give powerful performances that help elevate the film. On Swift Horses, with its sweeping romance and epic nature, feels outside of time, transcending any issues to become something deeply affecting.
On Swift Horses premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is 117 minutes long and is not yet rated.